A Sharp Blow
by FreeWrite
Summary: Tag for 'Nightwalkers'. Jonas' thoughts on the team, friendship and Sam


She slapped me!

Sam Carter is a little scary… and smart… and really pretty… and quite intimidating – although I don't think that she means to be that scary or smart or intimidating, as for the pretty, well… I suppose that's just my personal opinion more than anything else.

She's a pretty good slapper to be honest with you – yes I've been slapped before. There was just enough force for me to really feel it – and make it look real – but it wasn't hard enough to do any damage.

At the time I thought that she had been Goau'lded. I read the reports from the first time she got taken over and it really wasn't pretty – even though it was actually a Tok'ra. All of that knowledge in the hands of a Goa'uld would not be good. Sam Carter knows everything about Earths defences and their plans and intel. All sorts of things about our technology etc.

It was a really really bad bad thing if Sam really had been taken over by a Goa'uld.

And she slapped me!

I know it's taken me a while to work out the ins and outs of the SGC and some – ok most – of the personal preferences and specifications of the people working there but I still don't always understand exactly what's going on.

_"I just don't want people around here to start thinking I'm a little... strange."_

_"People don't think you're... strange."_

People from Earth really are strange creatures. Back on Kelowna I understood what the people around me where talking about, I understood the colloquialisms and the societal nuances of every day life but here on Earth I'm a little bit lost.

In that bar for example I'm still not sure exactly what Teal'c and I did wrong, how can a table in a public area belong to one particular person or group. Although thinking back, at home some friends and I would go down to this really nice pub for dinner once a week and we'd always sit at the same table. The difference was if someone got there first it didn't really faze us, we just found somewhere else to sit. Why couldn't those men just find somewhere else to sit, there were plenty of available tables. I might ask Dr Fraiser about it when we get back to the mountain.

But still…

Standing out here in the rain, Teal'c next to me observing everything and yet as always saying nothing my mind keeps going back to the moment when Sam Carters open palm connected with my cheek…

She really did slap me quite hard!

I wonder if she enjoyed it at all, I know that they all miss Dr Jackson, and even on occasion see me as an unwanted interloper. I have to wonder if she put more force than necessary behind the slap simply because I'm not Dr Jackson, if it had been him tied to that chair would she have slapped him at all. Although come to think of it she might not have needed to, he would probably have known she wasn't really a Goa'uld.

Does she even like me at all?

I know it's silly, a man my age and experience wondering if those around me really do like me or if they just put up with me because I'm simply the best – only – option available.

Colonel O'Neill has never hidden the fact that he resents my being here, I can't really take it personally, I think it's not so much that I am here as it's that Dr Jackson isn't here.

I can never really tell what Teal'c really thinks. The Jaffa doesn't give anything away in his expressions so you have to listen to the words he says. There aren't many of them but those few he says mean a hell of a lot, so I always make sure I'm listening when he speaks.

As for Sam, she confuses me a little. I know she doesn't dislike me but I don't know for sure if she likes me or not, especially after that slap.

Earth women seem to be quite a bit like Kelownan, this isn't a bad thing merely an observation. Back home I didn't really understand what my Father liked to call secret womans business and here on Earth it's exactly the same. Women are confusing and Samantha Carter is the perfect example of this.

She's always been pretty nice and helpful, never rude, occasionally sarcastic but never mean.

Maybe it's something else I need to ask Dr Fraiser when we get back to the SGC. Are women a universal constant? Though that question wouldn't be a fair one without the opposite side of the coin, are men a universal constant? Then in order to completely validate the findings I'd need to include children and several types of animals both domesticated and wild, as well as make sure that technological achievement is included in the variances as well as cultural nuances and religious beliefs…

I do know one thing for sure, there will never be another even remotely like Samantha Carter, and I don't mean that in a pubescent boy type of way, I wouldn't survive Teal'c's next self defence lesson if I did.

I stand here watching her deal with the men from the NID, and I realise that the slap wasn't personal in any way shape or form. It was the mission, Sam was seeing the mission through, and my cheek just so happened to need to be slapped in order for that to happen. Interestingly enough her slapping me may have saved all of our lives.

Teal'c and I were sitting there, tied to our chairs unable to do anything but watch while the Goa'uld was implanted, and then she's up and taking control – and slapping people, let's not forget that.

Then once again she saves all of our lives.

I wonder if that ever gets tiring? Can you actually get sick of saving everyone all of the time?

Why SG1, what is it about this particular team that makes us so special? How have we managed to literally walk through fire and when we walk out the other side we may not be whole or unscathed but… we get through to the other side. That's what counts isn't it?

I'm not sure how they keep going and I've only been with them for a matter of months, but year after year they've continued to go out there, they get chased off planets, slapped around by megalomaniacal alien parasites, occasionally make friends and sometimes even enemies but…

How are we not all insane?

Althoug now that I think about it maybe we are insane, maybe we're completely nuts? Maybe sanity was left behind years ago? Maybe I'm too stupid to know the difference, and should just keep smiling and enjoying it while I can.

Maybe the woman who I hope is my friend, who a few hours ago I thought had been taken over by a Goa'uld is insane enough to keep me alive.

Maybe I'm insane for questioning this.

_"So when we were in the sheriff's office, you were in complete control?"_

_"That's right."_

_"And you felt it absolutely necessary to really slap me?"_

_"Well...had to make it look good."_

_" ..."_

_"Let's get some lunch."_

I wonder if anyone's got anything to eat?


End file.
